Word: loam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...much of it on long-forgotten and never used systems such as Nike, Nike Zeus, Nike-X, Sentinel and Safeguard. The grandest of these, the Safeguard system, was built nearly 40 years ago in Nekoma, N.D. Huge earth-moving machines dug up 1.75 million cu. yd. of rich, black loam from the 470-acre site. Contractors built the base with 160,000 cu. yd. of concrete and 12,000 tons of steel. They crowned their work with a partly buried, 123-ft.-tall pyramid containing the system's key radar. Each of its four "eyes" had sprinklers to wash away...
...bush entrepreneurs," living on and using the land they were let loose upon, was unmatched in the Australian colonies. Yes, they did harm - introducing pests, wiping out species - but they were also changed by the land, and many loved it. In exploring Australia's past, "we need a richer loam of memory to draw on," says Boyce. "These were an extraordinary group of people who came to a remarkable land." This impressive account illuminates an intriguing chapter of Australia's history that has, until now, been overlooked...
...Marlborough a mere 30 years ago. Mild, fruity whites are what the country is most associated with, but the long-held perception that New Zealand's terroir isn't suited to reds has finally been overcome by a number of wineries producing world-class Pinot Noir. The silt-loam soils of New Zealand yield a Pinot Noir somewhere between the robust Australian reds beloved of influential American critic Robert Parker and the more complex Bordeaux wines. Some Kiwi wineries have even taken on the Australian stranglehold on Shiraz, or Syrah as it's sometimes called. In the Hawke...
...irony of a Celtic poet's attempting to revivify an Anglo-Saxon poem. When younger, he notes, "I tended to conceive of English and Irish as adversarial tongues, as either/or conditions rather than both/ands." But this notion faded the deeper he got into his translation. Digging, delving into the loam of language, has been a central metaphor throughout his poetic career. (His most recent selection is titled Opened Ground.) What Heaney has brought to the surface with his Beowulf is an old and newly burnished treasure...